The present invention relates to a copying machine with a collating apparatus which receives copy sheets from a copying machine body and distributes them successively into a plurality of storage bins.
A copying machine with a collator is operable in three different modes: a normal copying mode wherein copy sheets prepared within a copying machine body are directed onto a discharge tray, a collation mode wherein a series of copies from the copying machine body are distributed one by one into individual bins of the collator, and a sorting or assortment mode wherein a series of copies are delivered continuously into a single bin and then the same number of copies into the next bin.
Some of known copying machines of the type described have a function of changing the operating mode from a collation mode or an assortment mode, if set up, automatically to a normal copying mode upon the lapse of a given period of time after the copying operation in the collation or assortment mode has completed. This automatic mode change is to prevent a person who will use the machine next from operating it in a collation or assortment mode against his will.
Usually, a person using such copying machine in a collation or assortment mode causes it to repeat a second series of copying cycles after first repeated cycles. During collation mode in particular, he will prepare copies of a first page, then copies of a second page, then copies of a third page and so on until desired number of pages and volumes of copies are obtained. Then he will take the copy stacks out from the bins of the collator. Operator's actions in an assortment mode are almost the same as those in the collation mode but for a case wherein the desired number of volumes of copies is only one, in which case copies needs only be discharged onto a tray by a normal copying mode of operation. In this respect, the "assortment mode" mentioned will be employed to prepare two or more volumes of copies of different documents.
It follows that, in the collation or assortment mode, presence of sheets in a bin or bins of the collator means in many cases that the work for collating or sorting a series of copies is still under way. Yet, with the copying machine having such automatic mode changing function, the collating or sorting mode automatically and necessarily changes into a normal copying mode if a determined time period expires from the instant the copying operation in the collation or assortment mode has completed to the instant the next copying operation is started. Should a person using the machine in a collation or assortment mode suspend its operation for some time for the change of documents, preparation etc., the operating mode would be replaced by a normal copying mode automatically against his will.